Well, VC activity in Ontario might be cooling off (as I wrote here) but the provincial government has shown that it means business with its Innovation Accelerator Fund. Last week they announced that 8 start-ups would get up to $500k in funding. The premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, made the announcement himself. You can see the list of 8 companies and a short blurb about each here.
It’s great to see the government supporting local start-ups!
It’s great to hear about the new fundings, but I worry about government doing direct investing. Bureaucrats, politicians and civil servants have not done a great job historically in this area. Of course, the same can be said for private funds in Canada too. Oh well…
Congrats to the companies who got funded.